Monsters Cannot Love
by LivinJgrl123
Summary: Monsters can be killed. Captured. Used. Hated. But they say that monsters cannot love. *One-shot*


_**Disclaimer.**_

_**You all must hate me for not updating anything. **__**Sorry about that. **__**But there are certain people in my universe that serve as very distracting individuals when they are practically SKIPPING to home plate in baseball and then LEAPING like a friggin ballerina onto the pavement once they scored. And this particular individual is very confusing and aggravating and it's stupid. I've lost sleep over this whole entire situation! It's been going on since the last Friday of April (funny how that's the only way I can remember that).**_

_**M'kay. You can read the one-shot below. I'm done babbling.**_

_**Thanks for waiting - I promise to update as soon as school gets out OR SOONER! School gets out (for me) either on the fourth, fifth, sixth, or eighth of June :D**_

* * *

There were ways to deal with monsters.

Monsters could be killed.

Monsters could be captured.

Monsters could be mocked.

Monsters could be imprisoned.

Monsters could be used.

Monsters could be ridiculed.

Monsters could be hated.

Monsters could be driven mad.

Monsters could be controlled.

But no one believed that monsters could love. Monsters could obsess, monsters could become addicted to a presence - a calming one, or on they didn't understand. Monsters did not love. Monsters killed, reeked havoc on the world - they did nothing for the good of anything. They terrified. They murdered. They did nothing good for the world Haruno Sakura lived in.

Maybe they were wrong, about monsters not being able to love.

Sakura didn't like to think about this, but whenever Gaara was in the village, whenever he came from Sand regarding things that might not even have to do with the Hidden Leaf Village - the vision of a monster entered her mind, and in her mind, that monster might be able to love.

She didn't know when it had had started, she didn't know exactly when she had caught the insomniac's attention. It had been some time after the incident with Orichomaru - when he had killed the Kazekage, had taken his place during the end of the chūnin exams - when Gaara had lost control. It had happened sometime after that.

When she saw him after that, though, she was a phenomenal medic-nin. Tsunade's prized pupil. An astounding woman had been created by a weak, useless girl in a desperate attempt to become less of a burden, to be more than _nothing_.

Sakura had no idea how to say exactly when he began to notice that she existed. It was strange, really. Everyone still feared him. Everyone still hated him - but maybe now, they hated him a little less, now that he was Kazekage, but he was still a monster to those who had known him when he had been too young to know why his heart felt like it was bleeding, though it wasn't really.

Monsters could not love; it seemed like a logic that everyone had adopted over time, one that Sakura could understand, though she figured that no one really knew the Kazekage well enough to say if he really was a monster or not.

No one other than herself.

For some reason, it had become routine to come and greet her, to come and see her, to argue and try to scare her away, but none of his scare tactics had worked. Sakura knew it should have worked, or she should have been dead seconds after the first time she had outright told him exactly what she thought of him months - maybe even a year - since Sasuke had left her and Naruto for Orochimaru.

She had told him that he was manipulative, hopeless. Spiteful. Crazy. Unstable. But she hadn't called him a monster. She might have been the first girl to ever stand up to him after a degrading conversation with him upon leaving the Hokage's office one evening.

And in turn, he had called her weak. Helpless. Pitiful. Spineless.

Their words were filled with venom at the time. Only afterward, when they both stormed off, away from each other - Gaara, towards his awaiting siblings, who must have been waiting by the ages, and her, towards her apartment - did she feel guilty about the things she'd said to him.

She knew of his past, of his wounds, of the betrayals he had suffered through. Though, she had not used them against him. If there was one thing she was glad she had not said to him, during her rant of just how despicable and irrational he was, it was that she had not called him a monster.

Sakura would not call him a monster, though that was what, at the time, she, and everyone else saw.

Here she was, though. Almost two years past that day, when she had arrived home and had spent the evening slamming doors, angry at both herself and the unfeeling, cold, calculating, and manipulative redhead. She was angry at herself, however, for saying anything which made him spit back words that stung her more than they ever should have.

No one knew of their interactions. Well, fellow villagers pretended not to notice. When neither Sukura nor Gaara were near, they gossiped endlessly about the interactions, the arguments, the redundant insults - and it made everyone, even those who didn't partake in village gossip, wonder what was behind all of it, if there was anything to their words at all.

As far as everyone knew, Gaara of the Sand had no business with the pink-haired medic-nin.

But Gaara and Sakura were not everyone, though even Sakura did not know why the two even bothered exchanging any sort of words. There was no point, no connection between them - unless you counted the fact that he had nearly killed her and her entire village.

Gaara, though, was fascinated. Fascinated, without any reason to be. Observing her reactions, her actions, her words, her body language - it was all too interesting to ignore, though he saw little to no reason in taking notice in her.

Regardless of reasons unknown, the two quarreled endlessly. Sometime after Gaara had become Kazekage - maybe three or four years, and in that time, they did not interact, nor see, nor talk to one another - they did speak.

But with much less venomous words.

Sakura didn't like to think about it. It was all a jumble of sneers, jeers, confessions, and snarls in her memories. All she could really say for sure was that in that span of three or four years, Gaara had... changed. Somewhat. Not wholly, but enough for him to be able to speak to her without malice or contempt.

She had no idea how she had ended up where she was now. Her feelings were a mess. His were, too. In a mess of messy words, feelings, actions, and patience, she somehow saw that he truly was a monster. But this did not make he cower in fear of him. No, she merely set it aside as one of those things she had to deal with in day to day life.

Monsters could not love, some said. Sakura didn't know what to call what she and Gaara had - if they had anything at all. It was confusing and it was a mess and she was getting sick of it. They still bickered and argued and fought and snarled but they also shared tiny bits of affections and half-smiles that might have meant nothing to anyone else.

Sakura, standing against the door frame to the balcony of her apartment, was beyond confused, tired, and stressed.

And it was all because of a monster.

A monster that might hold her in his sights as an obsession, or an addiction - but she couldn't call it love. He would say love was a fairy tale, something for the weak - and neither were weak. She knew he was eternally damaged from his past, and he knew that she was not the strongest kunoichi in the Hidden Leaf Village - both emotionally and physically, though she was _one_ of the strongest in both aspects - and this - what they had - it wasn't working. Sakura didn't even know what _it_ was. They were ill-prepared for the other, and the onslaught of emotional turmoil one could bring to another.

And as the wind rustled her short, pink locks, Sakura sighed, bowing her head and closing her eyes, allowing her shoulders to slump. She didn't know if a monster like him - a monster like Gaara - could love. She didn't know what he was emotionally capable of.

It was all so confusing, and yet, she couldn't bring herself to believe the logic that had been enforced upon generations upon generations of human beings:

_Monsters cannot love._

Maybe Gaara couldn't **love** like people thought he should.

Maybe being the Kazekage's addiction - maybe being his obsessional - was as close enough to the concept of love as anyone would ever get.

Maybe, for monsters, that was love.

Sakura sighed again, feeling defeated.

If this was all he was capable of, then so be it. Though she couldn't - didn't - want to believe the logic, she knew there was some truth to it. It wasn't like she was head over heels in love with him as she had been for Sasuke, though. Usually she was good at falling in love when she shouldn't - but this? This was beyond understanding.

The feeling of defeat made Sakura's blood run cold with realization as the moonlight washed over her once again as the night went by with the quiet of the village and the murmur of the crickets.

Maybe they were right.

Maybe monsters couldn't love.

They could hate.

And be controlled.

They could be used.

And killed.

And hated.

And ridiculed, and...

and maybe they were right.

Perhaps...

Perhaps monsters could not love after all, no matter how great a fairy tale that seemed.

Sakura opened her eyes, but did not lift her head. The Kazekage would be arriving the next evening. Nights before arrivals of such were usually spent like this: trying to figure herself out, trying to figure _Gaara_ out, trying to decipher what it was that they shared, what they had - if it was even anything significant, if it was anything worth keeping.

One more, Sakura sighed, the defeat in her body becoming heavy and numbing.

"Monsters can't love," she whispered softly to herself, closing them again, her shoulders slumping even more.

_"Monsters cannot love."_


End file.
